Julien Pirou and Max von Knorring discuss the name change and the new creatures/units of the series and tell us how excited they are to be working on Might & Magic: Heroes VI.

Hooked Gamers: In Might & Magic Heroes VI, there will be a heavier focus on developing your character and players will be able to (quote) “create the hero you want to embody”. It certainly sounds exciting, but what does it all mean? :) And how does the Reputation system fit into all of that? What does it do?

Max: In previous Heroes the random factor was quite high – when your Hero was leveling up, you had a choice between several skills but they were picked randomly. So at times it could be frustrating because you could never build the Hero you wanted.

Julien: In Heroes VI we wanted to propose something a bit different, where you can always see all the paths you can take to build your Hero, so the choice is really up to you. And of course we’ve brought back the Might and Magic classes for each faction.
The reputation is another way to emphasize the fact you can now build your Hero to reflect your favored playstyle. A Blood Hero will be more an aggressive, damage-dealer kind of Hero, while a Tears Hero is more about support and economy.

Hooked Gamers: Acquiring land - and resources - is done in a similar fashion to what we see in the Disciples series, using control nodes to claim a certain area. We know that converting claimed cities to your faction changes their appearance. Will claiming control nodes have similar visual effects as well?

Julien: You can convert the Forts (what you call control nodes) and the Dwellings you find on the adventure map. However you cannot change the terrain itself. So no “terraforming” in Heroes VI.

Hooked Gamers: A HotSeat mode has already been confirmed but fans are of course eager to hear about multiplayer modes that don’t require sharing their PC with a friend. Are you allowed to share information on the availability of other multiplayer modes yet?

Max: Not yet, unfortunately :)

Hooked Gamers: Over half of the creatures/units in the game will be new to the series. What are your two favorite new additions, and why?

Julien: For me it would be the Kirin of the Sanctuary and the Breeder of the Inferno (I can’t resist a good old Lovecraftian monstrosity :)). And of course some of the Bosses are really cool, but I can’t say more about that ;)
I’m also quite fond of some of the new takes on classic creatures, like the Kensei Naga or the boomerang-wielding Goblin (this little guy has hilarious animations).

Max: We’ve worked with passion on all of them so it’s difficult to pick just a few :).
In terms of design I really like the Stronghold creatures, we had this idea of Orcs using Aztec/Maya decoration, it was risky as we could have ended-up with weird looking creatures full of feathers… :) I’m really happy about the result and think that they are quite unique and brutal! In terms of gameplay, the Panther Warrior is a one-man army!